Nadir
by Basser
Summary: Some things we aren't prepared to lose.


**A/N:** _Because a good friend's wife died and I felt like writing something awful._

_Short and somewhat experimental, with a slightly different John characterisation to my usual fare and a lot of overbearing angst. The ending will probably make you angry. I'm sick of warning folks about story elements so kindly just have a look at the genres and decide if you feel like being upset today. Cheers._

* * *

The explosion rocked the foundations under their feet. Plaster flew apart in clouds of white, rafters overhead splintered under their own weight while glass from a half dozen windows shattered into a shower of razor-sharp knives, cracks shooting down the walls like lightning.

John instinctively ducked under the nearest table for cover. Sherlock and Mycroft were on the far side of the room - hopefully away from the windows, had they moved quickly enough? Dangerous to check. Still, John glanced up through the turmoil, seeking them out. He just managed to catch a glimpse of Sherlock tackling his brother bodily to the floor as a shower of glass rained down on their heads.

_Sherlock knows how to handle himself in an emergency_, John thought, mind gone strangely calm as it always did in the midst of chaos. _They'll be alright._

It had been a fairly normal day up til now. Well, as normal as things ever got for them, at any rate. Mycroft had asked them round for tea in a thinly-disguised ploy to try to wrangle Sherlock into looking over a troublesome government case for him. Evidently, however, the stateman's usual offices had been cleared out for some sort of doggedly vague reason _(a terrorist threat, Sherlock had explained in a bored undertone to John - obvious, apparently, if one knew what to look for) _and the three of them had thus ended up seated round a table in a smaller, nondescript building tucked up by the banks of the river.

For its lesser size the meeting place lost nothing in Mycroft's usual taste for decadence, leaving John to fiddle awkwardly with his ornate china cup as the Holmes brothers got down to the business of sniping circles round each other. John did his best to keep up with the conversation as it ducked and wove through sarcastic jabs and insults, obscure metaphors and double-meanings. Something about anarchist groups and a looming government sabotage. Intelligence agents couldn't be trusted, according to Mycroft - that left Sherlock as the better option.

Sherlock had begun to pace around the room some ten minutes in and had come to an eventual stop at one of the large bay windows, staring intently out over the water. He failed to respond to his brother asking if he would deign to be helpful for once in his life. Finally, with a very put-upon sigh, Mycroft rose and ambled over to join his sibling by the glass. The older man raised an eyebrow in a questioning look at the routine river traffic outside, glanced sidelong to his little brother, opened his mouth to ask a question...

And then the building exploded.

The dust was beginning to settle now. Cautiously John poked his head out from his hiding place under a thick mahogany table and scanned the debris for signs of life. Dark shapes in the pile of window glass - Sherlock's shock of dark curls streaked with plaster dust just visible over a mangled heap of furniture. John picked himself up and rushed over to his friends.

He hadn't gotten within five metres before realising something had gone very wrong.

_"No no no no no..." _Sherlock's voice muttering - a quiet, desperate mumble. John approached, slipping on the scattered glass, and Sherlock looked up at the movement. The expression on his face could have rivalled some of John's late Army acquaintances for the look of utter, soul-rent devastation... between the hollow gaze and the blood smeared across the front of the young man's shirt John could almost believe he'd been transported back into a war zone, face-to-face with a battle-dazed private.

That feeling only intensified when he glanced down. Blood, lots of it. Glass shards littered with crimson far as the eye could see. He crouched on instinct to assess the patient at their feet, had to be in critical need of... assistance...

Oh, hell.

_Oh bloody hell._

That... that wasn't treatable. At all.

"I'm... there's nothing I can..." John started, but his words trailed off. Sherlock already knew.

_God_, of course he did.

:::

The hospital was stark white with the glow of buzzing fluorescents. Heady scent of antiseptics in the air and the low frenzied clamour of a hundred medical professionals muffled beyond the walls. John's injuries hadn't needed more than a sticking plaster or two; he'd been well away from any shrapnel and protected by a heavy table. Sherlock, on the other hand, had required several dozen stitches... and a psych evaluation.

He sat silent on the edge of an exam bed now, looking pale and lost. Shell-shocked. A thin hospital blanket had been tucked round his shoulders by a nurse at some point and was now in the process of sliding inexorably to puddle forgotten at his hips. Every once in a while he'd screw his face up in a pained grimace, make a choking sort of noise, then lean forwards to bury his face in his hands or tug fretfully at his hair.

John stood awkwardly to one side. He tried not to draw attention to the sounds of stifled anguish. Tried to decide what to do.

Of course he was trained in grief counselling - keeping combatants calm in times of acute stress, comforting patients, explaining prognoses... he'd had plenty of experience with this. Every physician did, one simply had to know how to handle these sorts of situations in order to survive the demands of the profession. But... christ.

How did one apply the tenets of a _gentle, authoritative tone of voice, assurances that nothing more could have been done, and condolences for one's loss_ to this? Even if the platitudes didn't come out sounding hollow and meaningless (which they most certainly would) there was always the added complication that Sherlock would know _exactly_ what John was up to the second he opened his mouth. He'd know full well it was nothing but a detached tactic drilled in by years of medical schooling, words every bit as sterile a treatment as wire splint and gauze. Far from being comforted he'd react with savage fury to the thought of being reduced to a formula like any other suffering patient.

But the thing was... John really didn't know how else to go about it. He was a doctor first and a soldier second and despite what he tended to let people think neither of those career choices had been made strictly in the name of human altruism.

If he were to try the well-rehearsed sympathies speech, though, what then? Either Sherlock would find the generic offer of consolation unbearably insulting or... or hell, maybe he'd appreciate the thought, at the very least? An indication that their friendship mattered, even if just by way of a pointless gesture? It was the next best thing to a hug, really _(which would not go over well at all, John knew, not in this state - Sherlock was extremely finicky about physical contact at the best of times and these were as far from those as one could get)_, or something like a metaphorical pat on the back, perhaps, if interpreted correctly... or John could just be asking for a right hook to the face, who bloody knew.

Oh sod it, though... might as well try. The only other alternative was this thick, stifling silence, and John wasn't sure he'd be able to maintain his sanity if _that _went on much longer.

He took a breath. "Sherlock, I can't even begin to imagi-"

_"Don't."_ Sherlock's pale, still blood-streaked face was visible as he lifted his head to glare venomously at John. They held each other's gazes for a tense moment, acidic grief to stoic, half-masked pity, before Sherlock's expression crumpled. He brought his long legs up with his feet on the mattress and buried his face against his knees, arms tucked miserably round his stomach.

"Please just go away," he mumbled after a few seconds. John hesitated - surely leaving him alone at a time like this was a terrible idea? But Sherlock looked up, bared bloodstained teeth and snarled like a savage animal. _"Go away!"_

John left.

:::

It wasn't that John didn't _care_ that Mycroft was dead. He did - quite a lot, really. Enough to be physically painful at times. The bombing had been an awful, horrific tragedy and John desperately wished he and his flatmate hadn't been forced to witness the grisly aftermath. Moreover he'd have given _anything_ to rewind the clock, to ensure Mycroft escaped unscathed. Or, if nothing else, remained _alive_. Even if only barely. Because with Mycroft laid up in hospital, disabled, on life support or in _literally any other _situation, however dire... then at least someone on the planet would still have a snowflake's chance in hell of being able to figure out what to say to Sherlock. God knew none of them had so far managed it.

And therein lay the crux of the problem. Because while John was keenly affected by the loss of the elder Holmes - as was everyone who'd known him _(along with millions who hadn't, dozens of foreign governments now reeling with the abrupt cessation of his influence on world politics)_ - there was simply no one whose grief could possibly compare to the weight of utter devastation Sherlock felt. No one could hope to comprehend all the nuances of Sherlock and Mycroft's relationship, where it had started and how deep it ran. Nor could they grasp the plight of two genius minds, once united against the hateful idiocy of the masses, now reduced to the solitary one. Not even John, the closest either of them had had a mutual friend, had known the half of it. And without the experience necessary to empathise he soon found his supportive efforts falling on increasingly deaf ears.

Which was why, as he tried to maintain the delicate balance of walking on eggshells round the flat and not being disgustingly patronising with ill-disguised pity, he began to seek out help.

Family, surely the best option. Both parents were dead - the father killed in some unclarified military incident years ago and the mother having succeeded in suicide despite placement in a home for the mentally ill. There were no other siblings. Two uncles and an aunt were busy squabbling over inheritance claims, the sole surviving grandparent was lost to dementia, and a single cousin had refused to return any calls.

That meant Sherlock, it seemed, was entirely alone.

But of course he wasn't. Sherlock had John, he always would. They were best mates. And if there was no one else willing to step up then John would just have to manage on his own.

Granted, he had no idea what in hell he was going to do to help... but damned if he wasn't going to do _something._ Even if that something was just to make pot after pot of tea and loiter unhelpfully round the flat, keeping as close an eye as he could manage on Sherlock's eating habits and initiating short, stilted conversations that inevitably went nowhere. Attending a closed-casket funeral full of aloof politicians and false-sorrow relatives, apologising over and over again for Sherlock's absence and accepting condolences on his behalf. Turning down every case that came their way no matter the victims involved or the potential for calamity if left unsolved. A million little actions to try to show support, day in, day out.

But they weren't enough.

No, John was still forced to watch helpless as his friend slowly transformed into a mute, ghost-like wraith. Sherlock hadn't spoken since the hospital, would barely deign to interact with the world at all. It was like he'd cloistered himself in his own mind. Finally declared himself done with reality and all its atrocities. A wisp, now, staring blankly at nothing.

John had failed.

:::

The idea came to John in the middle of the night.

It was terrible and it was wrong, and it wouldn't help at all. In fact it would probably push things further over the edge into outright catastrophe (if they weren't there already). An atrocious plan in every way possible.

But he thought and thought and he deliberated and he reconsidered... and he soon determined there was simply no other choice. It was this or nothing. They'd run out of options.

Getting hold of him was easier than expected. _Too _easy, really, but then John supposed he should have expected that. There were no such thing as secrets where this man was involved.

"You know your blog's really gone downhill lately, Johnny Boy."

Across the table Moriarty grinned, wide and guileless, and John wondered if it were physically possible for someone to look more like a reptile.

"Yeah, well, I've... been a bit busy." John shifted uncomfortably where he sat, rubbing at the phantom ache in his leg, and glanced out over the sea of chattering lunch-goers crowding the restaurant around them. It wasn't even a high-end place, this. Some hole in the wall a few blocks over from Baker Street. Served sarnies and burgers with over-seasoned chips at below-affordable prices.

Moriarty chuckled and took a sip of black coffee from a chipped white mug.

"Have you? I can't imagine what with. You two haven't taken any cases in well over a fortnight." That serpentine grin again. Flashes of being dragged into a car, explosives in a vest and the smell of chlorine... god, this had been a terrible idea."How is dear Sherlock, by the way? Doing well?"

John kept his hands on the table, expression stoic. "I think you know the answer to that question."

"Do I? Hm... you know, I might." He leant back in his chair, letting his eyes wander over the restaurant much like John had done earlier. A second of silence crept past. Then like a light winking out the smirk on his lips dropped into something cold and dangerous. "I might indeed..." Suddenly he looked back to John. "I didn't orchestrate that attack, you know. Morons did it completely on their own. Ignored the timeline, tossed out my blueprints, came up with their own stupid detonation pattern and then went and bloody _botched _the whole damned _thing_."

On the last word he slammed down his coffee mug with enough force to dent the tabletop, leant in to snarl savagely at John as if blaming him for everything gone wrong. A few lunch patrons darted curious looks their way.

John remained calm. This was nothing compared to a firefight. "Looked like they rather succeeded to me," he pointed out flatly. Then furrowed his brows. "Or... wait, you're saying you didn't mean for Mycroft to-"

"Die! No!" Moriarty exclaimed in a near-screech, throwing up his hands. "Of course I didn't! Do you have _any _idea how _boring_ the world stage is without that fat sow's fingers in every pie? I took over an entire _country_ last week and not a single idiot could stop me. I own a government, John. Just like _that_." He snapped his fingers to punctuate the statement, then bared his teeth in outrage. "It's _obscene_."

"Well, then in that case..." John started. This could actually end up working out much better than he'd hoped.

Moriarty, of course, already knew exactly where this was headed. "And now you want me to devise some sort of vapid little game for _Sherlock _to play. Only he's going to be utter rubbish this time round because he's so _sad _and _pitiful_, oh how he misses his _brother._ But here I've got to try and cheer him up if I ever want to be entertained again. _Ugh._"

"So... you'll do it?" John asked hesitantly. As usual when dealing with super-geniuses he was finding it nigh impossible to pick the literal meaning out from all the misleading nonsense. He was used to it, though, wasn't he? After all until just a few weeks ago Sherlock had always spoken that way - obnoxious and irritating as possible, more often than not entirely on purpose. The man practically _lived_ to bewilder people. Prime entertainment fodder whenever he got bored.

John frowned and rubbed at his leg again. He wasn't quite sure what to make of the sudden flash of pained longing shooting through his chest at the thought of Sherlock being a git.

Across the table Moriarty was sneering at him. _"So you'll do it?"_ the mastermind parroted in a mocking tone. "Oh don't flatter yourself, Johnny Boy." He relaxed into his seat once more. His posture melted into a bored slouch, and abruptly the lizard smile was back. "... I've already started."

Dark eyes flitted meaningfully to John's half-finished mug of coffee. John followed the man's gaze and felt the bottom drop out of his stomach.

Oh.

:::

Sherlock looked exhausted. Eyes bloodshot over dark sleepless bruises, sallow skin, unkempt hair and the skeletal frame of someone about ready to drop of starvation. The perfect picture of a man beginning to sink in on himself under the weight of constant stress.

But still, he was here.

And he was _angry._

That mask of pure, unadulterated rage was easily the most emotion than John had seen on Sherlock's face in weeks. And for that, at least, he supposed he'd have to declare this whole horrid fiasco a relative success. Not that he wasn't _severely_ miffed, of course, over the drugged coffee, being bound and gagged, kept in a small room for who-knew-how-long, getting dragged out by his arms and then finding himself in a deserted storehouse with a gun to his head... those were all really quite serious negatives, truth be told. Perhaps not a success, then. More of a massive failure with a single upside.

They were on a walkway leading around the perimeter of the wide, empty building. Sherlock stood taut and furious on the concrete floor below them like a caged tiger.

"How badly would it break you, do you think, if I were to just kill him right now?" Moriarty's easy grin spread cheshire-wide, seeming to split his face in half. "Could you handle another one so soon?"

"You won't kill him." Sherlock's voice came out hoarse from lack of use but his eyes gleamed fever-bright. "You're using him as blackmail, to force me to go along with this moronic little game of yours. The second he dies I stop playing."

Moriarty shrugged a dismissive shoulder. "Oh, I'm sure we could dredge up a few other little pawns to capture your interest."

"Try it," Sherlock hissed lowly. "If you think I've got anything to lose... just try it."

"What would you do, Sherlock? Would you hunt me down? Would you get _revenge?_" Moriarty's smile was verging on manic, now. He nudged the gun forward, a light shove to John's skull, and snickered. "Poor dear lad, gone on a killing spree. And all... over... this...?" With each word he tapped John's head with the steel barrel.

Sherlock's hands were clenched into tight fists at his sides as he glared hatefully upwards. He and Moriarty locked gazes for several creeping seconds.

"No," he replied finally. "I'd give up. Relieve the world of my presence."

"Hah! You know... I can almost believe that."

Sherlock's expression went vaguely alarmed for a split-second, then settled back to enraged. A hint of inquiry crept into his browline as one of his hands slowly uncurled and edged toward the waistline of his trousers.

"Almost?"

Moriarty snorted in mirth. "Oh, yes. I mean, it's all very convincing, of course. And if I didn't know any better... well..." He trailed off and, smirking, shifted the gun away from John's scalp to twirl it round on his finger a few times.

Instantly Sherlock's hand darted towards his beltline, he took a step backwards into a weaver stance with John's pistol already aimed for Moriarty's head.

"... I'd _almost_ believe you," Moriarty finished, grinning. "Oh you'll hunt me, Sherlock. You'll hunt me to the ends of the _earth_. Because you'll have nothing else to live for. Do you really expect me to believe you'd kill yourself? _You? _Hah!"

John felt the touch of cold steel to the back of his skull again. Below them Sherlock's expression had hardened in annoyance. He steadied his grip on his weapon but didn't yet fire. Instead the two men simply stared at each other. Seconds crept glacially past in silence.

"Stalemates can't last forever," Sherlock eventually growled, his voice echoing hollow off the metal walls of the storehouse.

"No... they can't, can they?" Moriarty's grin grew wicked. Sherlock's eyes narrowed dangerously. John gave the binds on his wrists one last desperate tug, hoping they'd come loose, as both gunmen fixed steady to their targets.

Two fingers tightened on the trigger.

A single shot rang out.


End file.
